Primary sourceBook
Ye Fattale Cheyse
Lewis Carroll
A comic poem by Lewis Carroll written in mock-archaic, Scots-flavoured spelling, retelling a hunt in a dark cave.
Shows Carroll's playful parody style, using mock-archaic spelling to turn a dramatic hunt into comedy.
About this source
What it is
This is a poem by Lewis Carroll, listed on Wikisource among his individual poems. Its title is 'Ye Fattale Cheyse'. The text uses deliberately old-fashioned and Scots-style spelling, such as 'Ytte wes a mirke an dreiry cave'. The record gives no date or place of publication.
Why it matters
The curator's note calls it a mock-archaic comic poem that parodies a style and shows Carroll's playful verse. Carroll was a scholar who enjoyed language games, and this poem plays with the look and sound of older English. Readers can see how a writer can use spelling itself as a joke.
Look closer
- How does the odd spelling change the way you read each line?
- Why might Carroll choose an old or Scots style for a comic story?
- What does the poem leave out about the characters, and what do you have to guess?
This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Lewis Carroll on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.
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